Hannah Oury- Visit #2

St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Burr Ridge, Illinois

15 West 455 79th Street, Burr Ridge, IL 60527

9/21/14

Ethnic, and liturgical

The worship of the service I attended was very different than my home church. The church was divided, with men on one side of the room and women on the other. At the front of the church on the stage, many men in white robes with red trimmings would chant liturgy into a microphone, wave incense, hold up a cross and Bible in front of an altar, wrap bread in a blanket etc. The entire congregation would read or chant many liturgies that were able to be viewed on one of the three screens at the front of the room. Even though I was technically in the English service, (the Arabic service being in the basement) each screen had English, Arabic and Coptic translations. Sometimes the leading speaker would chant in Coptic but mostly, he chanted in English. The chants themselves were hard for me to follow since some words would be emphasized with an up and down voice for lengthy amounts of time. The words elaborated on weren’t even significant words. At some point the word “the” was one of those select words, read TH-AAAA-aaaa-AAAAA-aaaaa.”

I found the involvement of every member in the service to be appealing. It wasn’t just one man speaking by himself for 45+ minutes like it is at my church. There was a brief sermon at St. Mark’s, but for the most part, the whole church body was speaking the whole time in call and response form. They sang during the communion, young boys would help distribute after-communion bread and water (bread had 12 crosses pressed into it, and the water was to wash down the communion wine), many men and young men and boys would be up on the stage helping with chants and rituals. It was a very communal type participation. We still had a part of liturgy where we brought our hands together as if in a prayer and touched our hands in greeting with our neighbors. I was also greeted by a man and woman who were church members who explained different things to the confused group of Wheaton students that I was sitting with. The pastor who did announcements even greeted the students from Wheaton and waved at us. I felt that I was in a very friendly church.

The most challenging part for me was all the endurance the service required with the standing and sitting. I was very confused what indicated to people when to sit. The members just seemed to know when to sit and when to stand and sometimes half would sit and half would stand like it was a moment of preference. Other times the men and women would press their foreheads to the pew in front of them as if in prayer while the chanted liturgies were still going on. I sometimes would feel the man who sat behind me’s forehead bump my back as he went to press it to the pew and then I knew I should press my head to the pew in front of me. Standing for the two and half hours that I stayed in the service was difficult too. There were kids in the service not in Sunday school and they seemed to have no problem with the length of the service. I was very surprised. I was also challenged by how to worship despite feeling rather robotic and reading parts of scripture, history and other texts in an out of context mish mash of what is liturgy.  I usually like music, or testimonials, or scripture readings where I follow along in my Bible and then think about the words before the sermon. This experience was very different.      

The sermon was on heart knowledge and head knowledge. We should know God through our heart but the question stands what is the heart? In the original Hebrew the heart is our core. In Greek, heart and mind are used interchangeably. The heart should be at the center of decision making, will and emotions. “The entire person at his core.” The church offers something holistic to the senses- bow, kneel, see, smell incense, taste of the alter etc. But to know God from your entire being, you need to know Him from your heart. The rest is just superficial. Even communion isn’t about our own needs and feelings, it’s about the Lord’s self-inside of us and God being worth it. Knowing God from the heart.  The pastor references St. James who spoke of the rich and poor man entering heaven. It was not the outside appearance of the men but the inside core that mattered. The pastor also mention how Leviticus has the earliest reference to loving one’s neighbor has themselves. We are to do this love from our heart even if we are not in it 100% emotionally because emotions waver and not just in church but “in our own bedrooms it’s all about Him.” The pastor also referenced why the Church baptizes infants even though they don’t possess head knowledge. Infant baptism at St. Mark’s is the same thing as infant dedication at College church. It is a sign that from an early age of childhood, the baby will be nurtured in the church.   I wouldn’t have gotten a description of how the church service appeals to the senses nor an explanation of infant baptism in my Church.